“I get it,” she said, her voice sounding a little raw.
He nodded and let her go. “Good. Because I have a feeling you’re the only one who can stop him if he really wants someone dead.”
She closed her eyes. “Great,” she murmured. “No pressure or anything.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“Reason number eighteen,” Mischa said with all the confidence she could muster, given the stupidity of what she was about to say, “is that you’re way too tall for me. I’d get a kink in my neck every time we kissed.”
There was a loaded pause while he processed that little nugget of crazy. And from the incredulous look on his face, he recognized crazy when he heard it. “I’m too tall,” he repeated dryly.
Now she was wishing her phone didn’t have that stupid flashlight app. Having to look at him while she spouted drivel—-because God knew it was drivel—was torturous. Every reason she came up with was beyond stupid and it would be a miracle if she made it through this.
But he didn’t say another word.
No, he was far too diabolical for that.
He reached her in one purposeful step, snaked an arm around her waist, and hauled her up against him until their mouths were precisely level and only a breath apart.
“There,” he said, his voice low. “We’re exactly the same height now. You can kiss me all you want without getting a kink in your neck.”
Oh, God. She wanted to. He’d taste like heat and sex and heaven all rolled into one glorious package.
But she wasn’t about to lose the bet this easily. “That was just an example,” she said, silently cursing her voice for sounding all breathy and, well, slutty, quite frankly.
He sighed, but dropped her to her feet. “Very well. Next reason.”
“Reason number nineteen is that I’m too old for you.”
His answering laughter took her totally off guard. “What’s so funny?” she asked.
“Love,” he said, letting out one last chuckle. “I’m centuries older than you.”
“That’s not what I mean. You were turned when you were twenty-five. I’m much older than that.” Forty, blech, “We’d look ridiculous together.”
He reached out and brushed the back of his hand over her cheek. She fought not to lean into his touch and rub her face against his hand like a stray puppy.
“You,” he said, “don’t look a day over twenty-five yourself. And even if you did, I couldn’t care less. You’re beautiful no matter your age.”
She let out a startled gasp as he spun her around toward the mirror on the elevator door and pulled her back against his chest. He leaned over her and pressed an open-mouthed kiss to the side of her neck. Her knees gave out, but he kept her upright without any visible effort.
“And look at us,” he whispered in her ear. “We look anything but ridiculous together.”
She met his gaze in the mirror by the light of her phone’s flashlight app and her eyes widened. Holy shit, he was right! They looked amazing together. They were physical opposites, but somehow, they were a perfect match.
“You’re down to your last reason, love,” he said, meeting her gaze in the mirror. “Make it real this time.”
Looking at him now, seeing his sincerity and the easy way he’d handled all of her bullshit excuses, she knew he was right. It was time to tell the truth.
She cleared her throat and shifted her gaze away from his. “I don’t deserve you,” she whispered.
He leaned in closer, moving his hands to her shoulders. “I have supernatural hearing, love, and even I can’t possibly have heard that right—so, I’m going to need you to repeat it.”
She threw her hands up in frustration. “I don’t deserve you, okay? I tried to kill you, for God’s sake! Why don’t you hate me?”
He jerked back as if she’d slapped him. “Why would I hate you? You were just doing your job.”
“I did what I was told without question, which makes me a shit person and an even worse judge of character. You were innocent.” She shook her head as tears filled her eyes. “I don’t deserve to be happy with a man I tried to kill.”
“And that’s the real reason you think we can’t be together?”
When she didn’t answer, he gently turned her in his arms and tipped her chin up with his index finger. “Mischa, is that the real reason? The only reason?”
She blinked up at him, confused. “You were expecting something else? The fact that I murdered people—tried to murder you—isn’t enough for you?”
He raised his hands up in a give-me-strength gesture. “All these years. Wasted. We could’ve been together, but you thought you weren’t good enough for me. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard come out of a smart person’s mouth.”
Her jaw dropped. “Hey, I’m not—”
He pressed his hand over her mouth. “I’m done listening. It’s my turn to talk.”
She considered biting his hand, but he gave her a reproachful glare so powerful she reconsidered. She supposed she, at the very least, owed him the opportunity to speak his mind.
Hunter pulled his hand away from her mouth and gave her a gentle shove back against the wall. He leaned in, putting his palms flat on either side of her head.
“I should’ve told you this a long time ago,” he began, “but I never dreamed you’d be so foolish as to think yourself a bad person.”
She frowned, not accustomed to having words like foolish aimed at her.
He went on, “When I first met you, I was fascinated with…well, everything about you. But specifically, I wanted to know why someone like you—someone so smart and strong and beautiful—would work for an agency like Sentry.”
He thinks you’re beautiful, her heart sang.
You should totally jump him, her body advised.
Mischa closed her eyes. Jesus, these little internal arguments had to stop. Especially since her heart and body were speaking louder than her brain these days.
“So I did a little research.”
Her eyes popped open. “What kind of research?”
“I know why you agreed to work for Sentry.”
She bit her lower lip to stop it from trembling. “You can’t possibly know that.”
“I know about how your father died.”
She’d never told anyone about her father. Not even Harper knew that her father died during a vampire’s failed attempt to change him.
Not even her mother knew that he’d asked for the change.
But Sentry had known. They even knew about the debt her father managed to amass before his death. Debt that would ensure her seven brothers and poor arthritic mother would never get ahead, not matter how hard they worked.
Sentry had agreed to not only pay the debts, but pay for her brothers’ college educations. She now had two neurosurgeons, one investment banker, three aerospace engineers, one defense attorney, and one cat cardiologist (yes, there is such a thing) in her family.
All Sentry asked in return was her future.
It wasn’t so bad, really. She’d earned a decent paycheck. Got to help people.
Or so she thought at the time.
“What did you want to be before they forced you into a life of servitude?” Hunter asked quietly.
She impatiently swiped away a tear before it could roll down her cheek. “A vet.”
He smiled, his eyes going soft. “You would’ve been an amazing vet.”
Her chin came up. “If given a second chance, I wouldn’t do anything different. I did the right thing for my family.”
He nodded. “I know that. It’s one of the things I love about you—but it’s also your biggest downfall. You put everyone else’s needs above your own. Your selflessness is going to get you killed one day.”
Her brain stuck on the word love and couldn’t seem to move past it. Did he just say that he—
“So, knowing that you are the kind of person who cares about others to the detriment of yourself, I looked into every one of the ki
lls you and your team carried out for Sentry.”
Her heart started to pound even harder. “And?”
“And they were good kills, Mischa. Every one of them was a real danger to society. Murderers, rapists, child molesters…you shouldn’t feel bad about ordering any of their deaths.”
Okay, maybe she was still just having trouble getting past the word love, because this wasn’t making any sense to her addled brain. “But what about you? If Sentry told me the truth about all of the other vampires, why would they lie about you?”
He shifted, looking uncomfortable, which was something she hadn’t seen from him since…well, ever, she supposed.
“I was on their list for another reason,” he said, somewhat cagily.
She raised a brow. “Really?” she asked dryly. “You’ve gone this far with the story and now you’re going to hide something from me?”
His jaw tightened visibly. “Let’s just say the director’s wife had an affinity for vampires. I never read her mind, so I had no idea she was married. And we weren’t, uh, discreet.”
Mischa let that information percolate for a moment, then she planted her tongue firmly in her cheek before saying, “So, let me get this straight. The director ordered me to kill you because you were banging his wife.”
He cringed. “Well, it sounds really dirty when you say it like that. Which is why I didn’t tell you about it sooner. Of course, in my own defense, I had no idea you’d been flogging yourself, thinking me an innocent man you’d tried to murder.”
“So I didn’t kill any innocents?”
Hunter shook his head. “No. Not one.”
And with those words, years of tension and worry and guilt bled from her body, and she slumped forward, resting her forehead on his chest. “Oh, my God. Thank you,” she whispered.
He pulled her into his arms. “You’re welcome.”
She eased back and punched him in the stomach, putting as much of her weight into it as their close proximity would allow.
He grunted, but didn’t let her go. “What the hell was that for?”
“That’s for waiting so long to tell me. And for the director’s wife,” she grumbled.
“You’re jealous?” he asked, incredulous. “Jealous of an affair that happened before I even met you?”
“No, of course not,” she lied. “And you better wipe that smirk off your face.”
“You’re not looking at me. How do you know I’m smirking?”
“I can hear it in your voice. You’re all smug and smirky in that way that only tall, arrogant, good-looking people can pull off.”
He chuckled. “Are we done with this ridiculous argument? Are you going to go out with me, or what?”
She paused. “Do we have to tell Harper about this? She’ll be absolutely unbearable with the ‘told you so’s’ and teasing and Harper-isms.”
“We don’t have to say a word. Consider this elevator Vegas. What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.”
She took a deep breath. “Ok. Yes. You win.”
His gaze dropped to hers and turned serious. He squeezed her hand. “Are you sure?”
Mischa stared back into his melted-chocolate brown eyes. She had no choice. She couldn’t avoid what she felt for him another minute. She was in this for better or worse.
She nodded slowly.
His lips were now a hair’s breadth away from her own, her heartbeat pounding a staccato tattoo in her chest. “I have one more question,” she asked.
“Anything.”
She was pretty sure she was blushing to the roots of her hair, but she went ahead and asked, “Are you one of those old- fashioned guys who believes in no sex until after—at least—the first date? And if so, are you at all flexible in that belief?”
He looked adorably stunned for about ten seconds. Then it took him all of two seconds to hoist her up and pin her to the elevator wall with his weight. Her legs wrapped around his waist on pure instinct.
“I’m surprisingly open-minded,” he said against her mouth. “Especially for a five-hundred-year-old dead guy.”
Finally, her body groaned. About damn time we started doing things my way!
Chapter Twenty-Two
Iron Gym smelled like sweaty jockstraps, Bengay, and something indescribable that Harper could only assume was testosterone. It was a strange, disconcerting combination. Harper found herself taking shallow breaths to avoid the worst of it.
She sat next to Riddick on the bleachers in front of the sparring ring as they watched two of the Lykoi fighters practice.
“Do you think either of them is the guy you’ll be fighting tomorrow?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No way. That smaller guy is a werewolf, and Romeo said the guy who beat him was human. Kind of. The bigger guy is—”
Harper winced as the werewolf caught the bigger guy with an uppercut to the jaw. The bigger guy flew out of the ring almost comically, reminding Harper of an old Looney Tunes cartoon she’d seen as a kid.
“—a buffoon,” Riddick finished, lip curling up in disgust.
She looped her arm through his and leaned in so that she could smell him—Tide laundry detergent, soap, and warm, hot male skin—instead of the stale air around her. “Maybe Romeo was wrong about when the guy practices.”
Just then, she felt Riddick stiffen beside her. She glanced up at him and followed his gaze to the locker room door, where a second pair of fighters had just exited, heading toward the ring.
Harper knew immediately that she was looking at the fighter who’d beaten Romeo, the guy who was scheduled to fight Riddick the very next night. And Romeo had been right.
This guy was no ordinary human.
He moved with a fluid, predatory grace that Harper had only ever seen on…well, Riddick. And even though the guy looked completely relaxed and at ease, something about his purposeful, economical movements let her know he was well aware of everyone in the room and was ready to take on any and all takers.
The other guy appeared to be some kind of shifter. Not a wolf; he moved too slowly. Had to be something bigger, heavier. A bear, if Harper had to guess.
As they climbed into the ring, Harper noticed neither man bothered with headgear, tape, or mouthpieces, which probably accounted for all the testosterone in the air. Only a couple of mule-headed, dumb-assed Neanderthals would spar bare-knuckled, risking injury for nothing more than practice.
The two fighters bumped knuckles once before separating and falling into their respective fighting stances. The shifter, who Harper decided to call Yogi, immediately charged Mr. Semi-Human, who dodged out of the way so quickly all she saw was a blur of movement.
Yogi was thrown off balance by Mr. Semi-Human’s sudden burst of speed and ended up stumbling head first into the ropes. Mr. Semi-Human grabbed a fistful of Yogi’s hair and tossed him back into the center of the ring.
Yogi snarled, but didn’t charge again. Instead, he circled his opponent, who hadn’t yet shown one emotion on his face. Harper wasn’t sure why, but she found that completely disturbing. What was the guy? A T-100 cyborg or something?
The two fighters started taking jabs at each other, but Harper found her gaze drawn back to Mr. Semi-Human time and time again. There was something really familiar-looking about him.
He wasn’t overly tall. Maybe five-ten, five-eleven. He was obviously very strong, but didn’t look particularly muscle-bound, either. There wasn’t anything about him that looked especially supernatural, and yet, he obviously wasn’t human. He exuded what could only be described as otherness.
If Harper had to guess, she’d put him in his late fifties, which seemed kind of old for a fighter. But even so, he was aging very well, she supposed. His black hair was thick and only a little gray at the temples, and his olive skin was smooth and unlined, which meant she’d either misjudged his age, or he didn’t smile much, if ever.
Given the complete and utter lack of emotion he’d shown thus far, she’d guess the latter was true.
Ju
st then, Yogi caught him with a sharp jab that sent him sailing back into his corner. The ropes caught him and bounced him back with enough force to drive him to his knees. That’s when he looked up at Yogi, blood dripping out of the corner of his mouth, and Harper saw actual movement in his face.
He smiled.
It was a terrible, frightening smile that told Harper the shifter in the ring was in serious trouble.
Harper sucked in a sharp breath, fighting the urge to yell a warning at Yogi to get the hell out of there. This guy was a complete psycho. No one took a hit like that and smiled.
But before she could even open her mouth, Mr. Semi-Human shot to his feet and charged Yogi, hitting him in the stomach with his full weight behind the punch. When the shifter doubled over, Mr. Semi-Human grabbed the back of his head and forced it down into his knee.
Yogi’s nose shattered, blood spurting all over the floor of the ring. He dropped to his knees and tapped out, but Mr. Semi-Human didn’t stop. He punched Yogi again and again. Harper swore she could hear bones, cartilage, and tendons snapping under the force of the beating.
Only when Yogi could no longer raise his hands to cover his head did Mr. Semi-Human back off. But not before delivering one final kick to Yogi’s head that would’ve been fatal, had he been human.
“Shit,” Harper muttered. “This guy’s fucking crazy.”
Riddick didn’t say anything.
She glanced over at him and her heart rate kicked up. He was pale. Riddick was never pale. “What’s wrong?”
Still no answer. She followed his gaze back to the ring and found that he was locked in some kind of crazy eye contact combat with the psycho.
The psycho smiled again, and again, it was terrible. Haunting, even. Not the kind of smile someone would give a complete stranger.
“Do you guys know each other?” she asked.
Riddick swallowed hard, eyes still on the psycho. “You could say that.”
Semi-Human (Harper Hall Investigations Book 2) Page 12